TURKEY – 140 Journos is a good example of why internet and social media freedoms are important if you want to get uncensored news. According to 2012 Prison Census by the Committee to Protect Journalists, Turkey is the leading country with 49 journalists imprisoned and China is in third place with 32. At the moment newspapers, TV channels and radio stations are also heavily controlled in Turkey. With conventional media debilitated, social media became indispensable. I read this article about 140 Journos on Columbia Journalism Review by Deirdre Dlugoleski and wanted to share with you.

In a 2011 court case in Diyarbakır, Turkey, a student is on trial for membership in a terrorist organization. The case is legally open to the public, but no journalists are present in the small, cramped courtroom. After several hours, one of the police officers perusing his Twitter account outside discovers that someone is tweeting updates from the trial. He marches in during a break and angrily forbids the unknown user from covering proceedings. When the Tweets continue, the officer informs the judge, who also insists the tweets stop. CONTINUE READING

TURKEY – On Friday 12 July 2013, hundreds of journalists rallied to slam the violence and censorship during recent anti-government demonstrations. Gathering under the banner of the “Journalists Platform” they came together at Galatasaray Square at 7 p.m. to protest what they termed the continual violence, pressure and threats they have faced at the hands of the police since the Gezi Park protests began in late May. They also demanded the release of their colleagues who are in prison.

The journalists marched behind a banner of penguins in a direct jibe at CNNTürk, which became the target of widespread ridicule and sarcasm at the beginning of the protests in late May when it chose to air a documentary on penguins rather than cover the demonstrations. CNNTürk’s penguins were subsequently adopted as a symbol of self-censorship that many news organizations, particularly the mainstream media, demonstrated during the initial stages of the protests. CONTINUE READING

SYRIA – He finally wrote to me. After more than a year of freelancing for him, during which I contracted typhoid fever and was shot in the knee, my editor watched the news, thought I was among the Italian journalists who’d been kidnapped, and sent me an email that said: “Should you get a connection, could you tweet your detention?”

That same day, I returned in the evening to a rebel base where I was staying in the middle of the hell that is Aleppo, and amid the dust and the hunger and the fear, I hoped to find a friend, a kind word, a hug. Instead, I found only another email from Clara, who’s spending her holidays at my home in Italy. She’s already sent me eight “Urgent!” messages. Today she’s looking for my spa badge, so she can enter for free. The rest of the messages in my inbox were like this one: “Brilliant piece today; brilliant like your book on Iraq.” Unfortunately, my book wasn’t on Iraq, but on Kosovo. CONTINUE READING